National Geographic: Riddles of the Bible - First Season

Exodus.

A biblical tale of miracles,

catastrophes,

history changed by the hand of God.

From the burning bush to the death of the first-born,

scholars and enthusiasts pursue natural explanations for supernatural events

in laboratories, desert sands

and on volcanoes.

Will these theories provide proof that the miracles actually happened?

What's the real story of Exodus?

ls it possible that it never happened at all?

Exodus,. a 3,000-year-old biblical story...

..of terrible plagues,

the parting of the Red Sea,

the lsraelites freed from slavery in Egypt.

The Book of Exodus is central to Judaism, Christianity, and lslam - the faith of billions.

A story endlessly retold around ancient campfires,

in sacred texts and on film.

The question is.. Did Exodus really happen as the Old Testament describes?

I beIieve the events recorded in the Book of Exodus are true events.

There is no scientific proof for the story of the Exodus.

I don't have proof, but I do have evidence.

The stakes are high.

The conflict over lands in the Middle East can be traced all the way back to the Old Testament.

For centuries, the epic events of Exodus have driven people to search for explanations,

for evidence.

Scientists and enthusiasts have attempted to decipher miracles

using techniques from the traditional... to the bizarre.

But the evidence remains tantalisingly slim.

Ruins unearthed in Egypt reveal that ancestors of the lsraelites

may have lived there before the time of Exodus.

Then an Egyptian engraving from 1 207 BC

placed the lsraelites in Canaan, present-day lsrael.

What happened in between is unclear except in the Old Testament.

3,000 years ago, Egypt is at the height of its power.

Pharaoh has enslaved the lsraelites.

Now they must build Egypt's cities and great monuments.

He fears the growing lsraelite population.

He decrees that their first-born sons shall be put to death.

A desperate mother tries to save her child.

Adrift in the river, the infant is rescued by Pharaoh's daughter.

The child is named Moses and grows up in the royal household.

One day, Moses defends a slave from a vicious beating by killing his overseer.

Now...he must flee for his life.

Years pass, and then, alone in the desert, he witnesses a wondrous event.

A bush burns, but is not consumed.

From the bush comes the voice of God.

God commands Moses to confront Pharaoh and demand freedom for the slaves.

Moses walks through the desert, alone, to challenge Pharaoh,

the most powerful person on Earth.

Moses demands freedom for his people.

Pharaoh says no.

ln response, the god of the lsraelites unleashes an apocalypse of natural disasters

and disease upon the Egyptians.

To save Egypt, Pharaoh is forced to free the slaves.

God guides the lsraelites out of Egypt parting the Red Sea,

raining manna from heaven and delivering them to the promised land,

changing the course of history.

Could this ancient epic be historically accurate?

Could these miracles be real?

There is a long tradition of investigators

searching for scientific explanations for biblical miracles.

Cambridge physicist Colin Humphreys is among them.

He thinks he can demystify the burning bush.

The BibIe describes Moses as seeing a bush that was burning

and the bush wasn't consumed.

So there must have been some externaI source of energy.

I have a theory this might have been due to a naturaI gas Ieak underneath the burning bush,

because we know naturaI gas is common in the MiddIe East.

We'II see if we can reproduce the burning bush Moses saw with this naturaI gas experiment.

So I'm going to turn on the naturaI gas.

Humphreys begins the demonstration.

Starter button here.

And you see the fIames have Iit up in the barbecue

and they're Ieaping through the bush aIready.

The most common bush in the desert is the acacia bush,

and we know that if you burn an acacia bush, you get charcoaI.

Rather than crumbling, charcoal retains its shape.

So this is reaIIy good.

Even though the fIames are Ieaping round it, the branches are stiII keeping their shape.

I think they'II graduaIIy turn to charcoaI.

And so, if this bush turns to charcoaI when you burn it, then it retains its shape for a Iong time,

and so I beIieve that was the burning bush that Moses saw.

We've reproduced scientificaIIy what Moses may have seen.

Plausible, perhaps, but hardly proof.

When it comes to the miracles of Exodus, explanations abound -

from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Perhaps one of the most daunting tasks for biblical investigators..

finding natural causes for the plagues that fell upon the Egyptians like hammer blows.

When Pharaoh refused to free the lsraelites, heaven's wrath descended.

The ten plagues began.

''The water shaII turn to bIood, and the fish that are in the river shaII die.''

The description sounds familiar to epidemiologist John Marr.

He's seen millions of fish die in red waters

from a profusion of microscopic algae called red tide.

When you Iook at it, you don't see the individuaI aIgae, which are microscopic,

but coIIectiveIy they turn the water red.

They occur today, around the globe. But they're almost always associated with salt water.

Marr had no leads.

Then, in 1 995, something strange happened in a coastal river in North Carolina.

A billion fish dead. The water...red.

The cause unknown.

But then researchers found the culprit, a deadly micro-organism called Pfiesteria.

Pfiesteria was IabeIIed the ceII from heII because it kiIIed miIIions if not biIIions of fish.

If that occurred in North CaroIina, in the 1 990s,

why couIdn't it have occurred in Egypt 3,000 years ago?

For some who believe that science can explain the plagues,

the red waters mark the beginning of a seemingly logical chain of events.

''BehoId I wiII smite aII thy borders with frogs,

into thine house and into thy bedchamber, and into thine ovens.''

What explanation could there be for this population explosion?

A naturaI check on frog popuIations are fish.

Now if the fish were to die,

frogs wouId have come onto the Iand at the same time - miIIions of them.

The Bible says the frogs were everywhere.

And then they died.

''And they gathered them together upon heaps; and the Iand stank.''

God had just begun to unleash his fury.

More plagues were yet to come.

Did each one set the stage for the next.. a chain of misery, illness, and death?

A red Nile, leading to the death of fish and frogs, did not convince Pharaoh to free the lsraelites.

lt was a decision he would live to regret.

And then outbreaks of insects descended on the Egyptians.

The first of the insect plagues was lice.

They infested man and beast.

''AII of the dust of the Iand became Iice throughout aII the Iand of Egypt:

Iice in man, and in beast.''

But something is wrong here.

No one species of lice attacks both humans and animals,

and two simultaneous outbreaks would be unlikely.

ln biblical times, the word for ''lice'' described any tiny bloodsucking insect.

What tiny insect, as small as lice, feeds on both humans and animals?

For entomologist Jeff Lockwood, one particular insect stands out.

A biting midge, these guys - CuIicoides. CuIicoides are bIood feeders.

Their mouth parts are Iike tiny swords that sIice open the tissue

and cause a pooI of bIood that they feed on.

Thousands and thousands, miIIions of these wouId have driven the Egyptians crazy.

The fourth plague was an even nastier insect pest.

''There came a grievous swarm of fIies into the house of Pharaoh,

and into his servants' houses, and into aII the Iand of Egypt:

the Iand was corrupted by reason of the swarm of fIies.''

For Lockwood, two consecutive insect outbreaks had to be more than a coincidence.

If we think back to the second pIague, what we have is heaps of dead frogs.

A dead frog does doubIe duty to produce a fIy outbreak.

If they're dead, they're not eating the fIies

and if they're dead they're certainIy producing habitat that's good for fIies.

ln this scenario, red toxic water could have lead to dead fish and frogs,

whose rotting bodies bred hordes of insects.

And then the Egyptians watched their livestock die all around them.

Cattle, horses, camels, oxen, and sheep all were destroyed.

There is no disease, or very few diseases, that couId affIict aII those Iivestock simuItaneousIy,

so we have to Iook for some common cause.

If it's not a common disease, we suspect that it is a common carrier of disease.

Lockwood's prime suspect.. the biting midge of the third plague,

a common carrier of many animal diseases.

A midge outbreak could have spread gruesome animal diseases,

like blue tongue and African horse sickness, in epidemic proportions.

The midge is just an absoIuteIy ideaI expIanation,

one common midge that's capabIe of transmitting diseases

sufficient to sicken basicaIIy aII of the Egyptians' Iivestock.

Lockwood sees a pattern emerging.

The plagues may be connected.

Dead fish, then frogs, then insects, and now dead livestock.

Each plague may have emerged from the previous one.

EcoIogicaI pieces are now faIIing into pIace.

Lockwood looks to the sixth plague, a disease that affects both humans and animals,

to see if it, too, was triggered by an earlier plague.

''It shaII be a boiI breaking forth with bIains upon man, and upon beast.''

There are several bacteria, such as anthrax, that can cause lesions and boils.

Something had to spread the bacteria among the victims, and do it quickly and efficiently.

What wouId have carried it to both humans and animaIs?

Let's think back to the fourth pIague, the fIies.

lt's house flies versus stable flies in a test to find the best disease transmitter.

We are going to use this yeIIow dye to mark the house fIies.

The orange dye, the stabIe fIies.

The dye is going to substitute, in our case, for the bacteria.

Lockwood sacrifices his arm to science,

testing to see if either fly will transmit the dye to his skin.

ln moments, the first stable fly attacks.

Aah! Yup, he's starting to feed there.

Ooh.

And you can imagine what the Egyptians,

or I can imagine what the Egyptians wouId be suffering if they were covered in these fIies.

The stable flies leave the most powder and break the skin.

They've Ieft powder aII over the pIace; they're aII over me in biting.

The stabIe fIies are probabIy the guiIty party.

What we have is an ecoIogicaI domino effect.

Something goes wrong with the river, it drives the frogs onto Iand.

Outbreak of insects, midges, which then carry diseases to the Iivestock.

We have an outbreak of fIies, which carries boiIs to man and beast.

Some scholars think the first six plagues form a series of interconnected natural events.

But what about the rest?

At this point in the story, God had severely punished Egypt.

Still, Pharaoh refused to free the slaves.

God was not done.

The next four plagues formed another chain of devastation.

Crop-destroying hail gave way to ravenous locusts.

''And the Iocusts went up aII over the Iand of Egypt, the Iand was darkened;

and they did eat every herb of the Iand.''

There wouId have been more Iocusts in a swarm